Jackpot
by shoreleave
Summary: Dean's luck from the rabbit's foot didn't end quite as quickly as he thought. But can it save him from going to Hell? AU of Season Three, from "Bad Day at Black Rock."


"That _bitch_," Dean said, for the twentieth time that evening, as he squirted disinfectant into the bloody bullet graze in Sam's shoulder. "I can't _believe_ she took our hard-earned cash."

"That's what's got you upset? _Ah!_" Sam hissed, trying not to jerk away. "What about the fact that she _shot_ me?"

Dean shrugged, looking slightly abashed. "Well, yeah, that too."

"It was a bunch of scratch tickets, Dean. Hey! Take it easy," he complained, as Dean began winding gauze tightly around his shoulder. "You didn't exactly spend hours at hard labor on them. Just forget it. We'll get by."

He knew his brother was furious with himself for letting Bela steal the tickets right out of his shirt pocket, but Sam couldn't drum up too much sympathy. Dean had only been on the flip side of the rabbit's foot for a few minutes, whereas Sam had spent the day being bruised, burned, beaten, and damn near getting killed. He was just thankful they'd been able to destroy the cursed object before something worse had happened.

Dean dug a half-empty bottle of Jack out of his duffle, grabbed the TV remote, and flopped down onto his bed, still shaking his head and muttering to himself, something about curse boxes and payback. Sam busied himself cleaning up the bloody gauze and repacking their first aid kit.

He couldn't really bring himself to get too upset with Bela. In comparison to their other problems, her greedy manipulations seemed like a brief comic relief.

Problem one: Dean was still going to hell at the end of the year (304 days, now). His brother didn't seem to have a plan of action beyond "raising a little hell," and while Sam couldn't blame him for trying to distract himself, it was all Sam could think about. Problem two: the Gates of Hell had been opened, and they were now dealing with more evil than they'd ever encountered before. And problem three: the only source of "help" he'd been able to find so far—that mystery girl Ruby-had revealed herself to be a demon.

"_Don't you get it, Sam? It's all about you. What happened to your mom, what happened to her friends. They're trying to cover up what he did to you. And I want to help you figure it out." Ruby sounded sincere and downright concerned for him, but he couldn't shake the feeling that she was hiding something._

_He was torn. He should be shooting her with rock salt, flinging the holy water in her face, but… "Why would you want to help me?"_

"_I have my reasons. Not all demons are the same, Sam… I want to help you from time to time. And if you let me, there's something in it for you." _

_She was lying, he knew she was, but he was like a moth to a flame; he had to know what she meant. "What could you possibly—"_

"_I could help you save your brother."_

"_How?" And just like that, he'd crossed a line he thought he'd never cross. _

Ruby was proving herself useful. Even Dean had to admit that. Sure, she was a cold, manipulative bitch, and she was clearly up to something, but on the plus side, she'd gotten the Colt working again.

Dean had been giving him these weird looks lately, as if he thought Sam was slightly deranged—and okay, maybe he'd been a little trigger-happy with the Colt, shooting that possessed priest and his girlfriend without his usual angsting over the moral grey area—but he was getting desperate. (He didn't hesitate before blasting away that smart-mouthed Crossroads demon, either, but he felt that was perfectly understandable.)

Dean was livid when he found out. "It was a stupid freakin' risk, and you shouldn't have done it!" Sam wasn't sure what bothered Dean more: the fact that he'd wasted one of the Colt's bullets, or the fact that he'd been keeping secrets.

Well, Dean could just get over it, because Sam was going to do everything he could to save his brother. And Ruby was his best lead at this point.

**SpN*SpN*SpN*SpN**

They were getting ready to leave New York again, after solving the mystery of the evil stepmother and the fairy tale attacks. Sam was surfing the Internet for a case, while Dean busied himself doing one thing after another.

Dean was restless. Beyond restless, really, and heading straight into agitated. Sam knew it had to do with the Deal. Dean wouldn't talk about it, never admitted to regretting it or worrying about it, but the deep down, he had to be terrified. He could distract himself temporarily by focusing on a case or with some enthusiastic partying with a waitress here and there, but it never lasted. Before long he'd be bursting out of his skin again, jittery and irritable.

He watched out of the corner of his eye as his brother sharpened their knives, cleaned their rifles, inventoried their ammo, and basically stomped around the hotel room brimming with nervous energy.

"Relax, Dean," Sam told him. "You're making me nervous. Why don't you watch some TV?"

Dean shot him an impatient look, clearly not in the mood to unwind. He glanced around the small hotel room, looking for another target for his pent-up energy. His gaze landed on the trail of dirty footprints leading inside from the door. "Gimme your clodhoppers, Bigfoot. You're dragging mud in everywhere we go."

It was true, his boots had been caked with mud since their trek to that wooded cemetery where they burned the rabbit's foot. Sam jerked a thumb toward the door, where he'd kicked the boots off and left them in a pile. "Be my guest." Maybe banging his shoes together would release some of Dean's nervous tension.

Dean grabbed the boots and headed outside. Sam could hear a steady thwacking of leather and steel meeting the pavement, no doubt sending clumps of dirt flying in every direction. After a few minutes, Dean ducked back inside, grabbing his own dirt-covered boots from under his bed.

More thwacking.

"What the hell…" Dean sounded genuinely perplexed, and the banging stopped.

Oh shit, Sam thought, maybe the sole's broken. New boots were going to be expensive. "Everything okay?" he called.

Dean walked back inside, frowning. "Take a look at this…" He was holding a crumpled, muddy piece of paper in his hand. "This was stuck to the bottom of my shoe."

Sam flattened it out, brushing off the dirt as much as possible. It was a two-dollar Powerball ticket, stamped _Pennsylvania Lottery_. He squinted at it, trying to make out the faded lettering. "Powerball, huh? This drawing was a few weeks ago."

"I must've stepped on it, back in the cemetery."

"Yeah… so? Toss it out." He turned back to the online edition of the _Boston Herald_. There was a front-page item about two mysterious dry-land drownings; he clicked on the link for more details.

"This is important!" Dean sounded affronted, and Sam looked back up. "Don't you get it?"

"Get what?"

Dean was looking at him like he was an idiot. "Come on, think about it for a minute. I had the rabbit's foot with me the whole time we were at the cemetery. Including when I stepped on this ticket."

Sam shook his head. "_Almost_ the whole time. Bela showed up and you tossed it to her-"

"Bela the _Bitch_," Dean clarified. "Who stole my scratch tickets."

"Because you lost the rabbit's foot, Dean!" he said, exasperated. "Whatever good luck you had was gone. That's how it works."

"Well, could be that I stepped on that ticket _before_ I lost the damn piece of fur, Sammy. And we burned the rabbit's foot about two minutes later, so maybe there wasn't much time for the bad luck to really sink in!"

Sam sighed. The last thing Dean needed was one more disappointment, but he was obviously not going to let this go. "Fine. Whatever. Let's check it out."

He turned back to his laptop, typed in _Pennsylvania Powerball_, clicked onto the site and scrolled down to the lottery results. "Okay… the winning numbers for September 1st were nine, eighteen, twenty-two, thirty-four, and forty-six," he rattled off quickly, "and the Powerball was—"

"Twelve," Dean finished for him, staring down at the crinkled scrap of paper, and then raising startled eyes to meet Sam's gaze.

"_What_? Let me see that." He grabbed the ticket and checked the results, number by number.

"This is the official website, isn't it?" Dean asked hesitantly. "Are you sure you got the date right?"

"Oh my God," Sam breathed. "Holy shit."

"What…" Dean's voice cracked, and he swallowed. "What was the prize?"

"Uh…" Sam frowned. "Well, it looks like nobody's won the jackpot in a while. It…" His voice trailed off while he scanned the page. His hands felt suddenly cold.

"It _what?_ Sam?"

"Well, the prize can be paid out in two ways, as a lump sum, or over thirty years," he stalled. This had to be some kind of hoax. "The annuity payments actually add up to a lot more in the end—"

"Sam." Dean rolled his eyes. "I'm on a deadline here. We're taking the lump sum. How much is it?"

Sam took a breath, trying to steady himself. "371 million."

Dean blinked, then fumbled for a chair, sliding unsteadily into it. "But… I have to share that with the other winners, right? How many winners were there?

"For that drawing," Sam said weakly, "just one."

"Me?" Dean started to laugh. "Are you serious, Sammy? I hit the _jackpot_? I'm a gazillionaire?"

"Well, it's taxable income, so… Hang on a minute." He did a quick search of taxes on lottery winnings. "They take off 25% in federal taxes. 28% if you don't provide them with a valid tax ID. And then there are state taxes."

"How much are state taxes in Pennsylvania?"

Sam's eyes widened as he scanned the page. "Nothing… Pennsylvania doesn't tax lottery earnings."

"Well, isn't _that_ a lucky break."

Sam could feel his heart galloping, heat flushing his face. "This is insane, Dean. I mean, I can't believe this is really happening to us…" He clicked on the laptop calculator. "72% of 371 million is… $267,120,000."

Dean closed his eyes, smiling broadly. "Say it again, Sam."

Sam felt an urge to pinch himself. This couldn't be real. "That's over a quarter of a _billion_ dollars. But you can't get excited, this doesn't make sense…"

"We're _rich_."

"Just wait, it's got to be a curse of some kind, maybe a djinn, I don't know, but we—"

"Sam-_my_!" Dean crowed, spreading his hands expansively. "We're fucking _rich!_ I mean, we are, like, _filthy_ rich! Rich enough to do anything we want! We can buy what_ever_ we want! We can eat at the best restaurants, we can stay at the best hotels…" He faltered, as if he were at a loss for words. "Uh, we can buy all the ammo we need, pure silver, right? We can go places! Hawaii, Europe…"

"Dude, you still hate flying, remember?"

Dean scoffed. "But now I can afford the best booze to smooth the way. Hell, I can bring along my own personal therapist to talk me through the flight!"

Sam sighed. Part of him wanted desperately to celebrate with Dean, but the more rational part was practically thrumming with alarm bells. He was reluctant to put the damper on Dean's enthusiasm, especially now, but Dean had clearly stopped any kind of analytical processing the moment he heard the word _billion_. "Look, I hate to burst your bubble, but _think_ about this for a minute, okay? This is _us._ Dad always said there was no such thing as a coincidence, remember? Come on, the winning ticket for the biggest jackpot in Powerball history just happens to be stuck to your shoe?"

"Because I was holding… a… rabbit's… foot!" Dean said, enunciating each word slowly as if Sam were three years old. "It was my lucky day!"

"We should call Bobby. We have to research this. There's got to be something demonic behind it… You know that most people who win big in the lottery wind up destitute and miserable, right? This could be some kind of weird hoodoo, or payback from that coven we torched last year…"

Dean looked both angry and hurt. "Sam, you are not ruining this for me!"

A wave of guilt washed over him. Naturally Dean was taking this at face value. With less than a year to live, instant gratification had become his MO. And… why shouldn't he live it up for once in his life, if he had the means? It pained Sam that even when confronted with the idea of instant, overwhelming wealth, his brother could barely imagine what to spend it on besides better hotel accommodations and more ammunition.

"Fine," he said. "I'll leave it"—_for now_—"and we could drive down to Pennsylvania, I guess. We'll need to find a state lottery office."

"Breakfast first," Dean beamed. "I'm buying."

**SpN*SpN*SpN*SpN**

"_This can't be good,"_ Bobby agreed when Sam phoned him, just as they were pulling in to the parking lot of the Pennsylvania Lottery Headquarters in Middletown. The skepticism in his tone blared out of the speaker, loud and clear. _"You Winchesters have made a fine art of being in the wrong place at the wrong time. Can't see why this should be any different."_

Sam caught the meaningful look Dean was sending his way, and asked, mostly for Dean's benefit, "Couldn't it just be coincidence?"

"_Well, you tell me, kid._ _Your brother's time is running out, there are demonic signs everywhere, and you wanna tell me he's suddenly the luckiest guy on the planet? Not buying it."_

Dean kept his face expressionless, but a muscle in his jaw twitched.

"So… you think we shouldn't take the money?"

"Sam!" Dean hissed sharply, making him flinch back. "We are _taking_ the money. Not up for discussion."

"_Didn't say that. Could be legit. I'm just sayin', things like this don't usually happen unless there's a reason behind it. Somebody's probably setting you up for a fall. You boys need to watch your step."_

"Or maybe somebody's finally trying to help us, Bobby!" Dean growled, leaning toward the phone. "Why do the odds always have to be against us?"

"So you'll look into it?" Sam pressed, clicking off the loudspeaker and bringing the phone to his ear. Dean was obviously in no mood to hear Bobby's doubts.

"_Not sure exactly what I'm looking into, or where I'm supposed to look… You _do_ know the Midas touch is a myth, right?"_

"Thanks a lot, Bobby, talk to you later." Sam said hastily, shutting the phone.

"Well, isn't he the little bundle of cheer." Dean seemed offended. "You'd think he'd be a little happier for us."

Sam shrugged. "He's just worried." _And he's not the only one._

"Mark my words, Sammy, we're gonna lose all our friends, the minute they find out we're richer than Bill Gates."

"We're _not_ richer than Bill Gates. He has, like, fifty billion dollars, Dean. We're not going to be making the Forbes 400 any time soon." Sam paused. "And we don't have a whole lot of friends, anyway."

"Good!" Dean nodded, looking grim. "Last thing we need is a bunch of hangers-on wanting us to get 'em out of debt and buy 'em penthouses. But Bobby doesn't have to worry. I'll get him something good… a nice bottle of Scotch. Or some new bookshelves. Maybe one of those robot vacuum cleaners."

Sam rolled his eyes. "Classy. All right, let's get this over with." He put his hand on the car door to open it, but Dean stopped him.

"Hang on." Dean reached back, scrounging around in the mess of take-out wrappers and used napkins in the back seat footwell. When he turned back, he was holding a crumpled brown grocery bag from one of their supermarket runs. Using his jackknife, he deftly sliced out two round holes for eyes, then upended it over his head.

"No pictures," he said, voice muffled.

Sam burst out laughing. "Relax. I don't think anybody's waiting in the parking lot with a camera."

"Don't want to tip off that FBI spook, Henriksen. We don't need any publicity."

They got out of the car. Sam watched with a wry smile as Dean turned his bagged head this way and that, then almost tripped over the curb.

"Damn it! Made the eye holes too far apart."

**SpN*SpN*SpN*SpN**

Sam had been imagining Dean would be given an enormous check with the ludicrous sum written on it, accompanied by balloons, smiling clerks, and flash photography, but the reality was a lot more sedate. They filled out lottery forms and IRS paperwork, declined to participate in a news conference, and were quietly congratulated by the lottery director.

Then they were told the money transfer would be completed within fifteen business days.

"Fifteen days!" Dean fumed, after fumbling his way back to the Impala, still hidden in the paper bag. "Can't they fast-track this? What's the point of being rich if I can't get things done in a hurry? What are we supposed to live on for the next three weeks?"

"Same thing we've been living on all year," Sam told him. "We can hustle a few games of pool, and we've still got about six hundred bucks left on that new card before it maxes out."

"And that doesn't annoy you?" Dean shot an angry glare in his direction as he turned the key in the ignition. "This system is screwed! The whole place is run by a bunch of bitter paper pushers who barely make minimum wage."

"I don't really think you're a victim of oppression here, Dean. Money transfers of this size take time."

"Whatever," he grumbled. "I'm losing money every day. Thousands of dollars, just from the interest."

**SpN*SpN*SpN*SpN**

Three long weeks later, they were on their way to Anaheim, California.

Sam hadn't objected when Dean mentioned Disneyland. He could imagine how someone as deprived as Dean had been growing up would naturally want to experience some of his childhood dreams, now that he could afford them. And he didn't mind indulging him, since he hadn't heard from Ruby in over a month and had no other leads in finding the demon who held Dean's contract.

Disney was every bit as kitchy and touristy as he'd thought it would be, and Dean seemed to eat it up, so Sam held his peace. He squashed himself into the rickety boat in It's a Small World and went on Space Mountain twice. He drew the line at going through the Sleeping Beauty Castle Walkthrough, but all in all, it was a nice break, a touch of normalcy that reminded him that not everyone was swept up in the horrors of the Devil's Gate.

Mostly, though, he watched Dean. He couldn't help smiling at the goofy grin pasted over his brother's face as he bought souvenirs and ice cream (pricey, but who cared). Occasionally, he caught Dean staring wistfully at a mother-son pair, making him wonder whether Dean was thinking of Lisa and Ben.

Dean seemed subdued as they drove away. Sam supposed it was inevitable. They were leaving the world of fantasy and returning to their real lives. The lottery hadn't changed the depressing facts, and Dean's due date hadn't budged.

"That was fun," Sam offered, hoping to keep the mood light. "Not too crowded, either. I guess October's their off season."

"Yeah, I guess…" Dean said absently. "So, how much was it?"

"How much was what?"

"The whole resort thing. How much did we spend?"

Sam was taken aback. "What does it matter? It didn't dent your bank account, believe me."

"Humor me."

His tone suggested Sam had better take him seriously, so he did the calculations. Two nights in the Candy Cane Hotel (luxury suite), entrance tickets to the park, lunches and dinners at various Disney restaurants, snacks, souvenirs, and a few drinks at the Mi Amor Bar and Grill… "Eighteen hundred dollars, give or take."

Dean's mouth dropped; he looked appalled. "Eighteen hundred?"

"Maybe closer to nineteen hundred, actually," Sam amended. "I forgot about the arcade."

"Yeah, that was great," Dean grinned, remembering, then sobered quickly. "But, are you serious? We didn't even manage to spend two thousand dollars?" He seemed put out.

"Well, we drove here, so I guess we should add the gas money… Not sure I see the problem, though. We've got the money."

"That's not the issue! I'm trying to _spend_ it," Dean said, thumping the steering wheel with his fist in punctuation. "Damn it, I earned more in interest in those two days than I just spent!"

Sam wasn't following. "What exactly is the problem? You had fun, you did something you've always wanted to do…"

"It's not enough! I want to enjoy my time left to the fullest, and that means living the high life."

Sam couldn't believe he was serious. "Dean, what the hell's the matter with you? You can't spend a quarter of a billion dollars in a year—"

"Ten months."

"—by going to amusement parks. And why would you _want_ to, anyway?"

"Sammy." Dean gave him a _get-with-the-program_ glare. "I wanna raise some hell, before I _go_ to hell. I'm not gonna be that guy who died after winning the jackpot, and left all his winnings in his bank account!"

In the ensuing silence, Sam's exasperation melted, and he softened his tone. "That's not going to be your legacy, Dean. You're a hunter. A _hero_. You've spent your whole life saving lives. That's who you—"

"Can it, Sam, you're missing the point," Dean interrupted, clearly unwilling to listen to Sam's attempt at comfort. He patted Sam's leg in apology, "Hey, don't get me wrong. Not to worry, I'll leave you a couple of million, but I'm planning on spending the rest. I can't take it with me, can I?"

Ouch.

"Fine," Sam agreed, albeit reluctantly. "You're going to have to think a little bigger, that's all. Buy a couple of mansions…"

"Are you kidding? What would I do with a bunch of big houses?"

"A new car?"

Dean froze him with an icy glare, then patted the steering wheel gently. "Baby, he didn't mean it," he crooned. "Don't worry, if he says something like that again, I'm kicking him out on his ass."

Terrific. "I don't know how to spend that much money, Dean. I'm guessing don't want a private jet or a helicopter."

Dean shuddered. "God no. I'm staying on the ground until it's my time to go. Give me some other ideas."

"How the hell should _I_ know what people do with their money? They redecorate, I guess. Throw parties. Travel. Give money to charity."

Dean snapped his finger. "I know! We'll treat it like a job and research it. You can google 'Lifestyles of the Rich and Famous,' and I'll do some interviews. Let's get some ideas for spending a shitload of money."

Sam felt like shaking him. "Who, exactly, are you going to interview? You can't just go up to Oprah Winfrey and ask her where she went on vacation and what she spends on her wardrobe."

"Leave that to me, sweetheart. We're heading to Beverly Hills."

_But this _isn't_ our job_, he wanted to argue. _What happened to saving people, hunting things?_

The protest died on his lips.

Unless he came up with a viable plan—something that was looking less and less likely-Dean was going to die, and then he was going to suffer horribly for all eternity. How could Sam tell him not to enjoy his last months on earth, if this was how he wanted to live them?

**SpN*SpN*SpN*SpN**

"It's about time," Sam huffed, when Dean finally came to get him in the lobby of the Regent Beverly Wilshire, where he'd been waiting for the past three hours. "Wait, you went _shopping_?"

Dean looked uncomfortable. "Hey, Rodeo Drive's about a minute from here, and c'mon, man, you've seen _Pretty Woman_, right? I had to check it out." Dean was still dressed in denim, but his clothes now hugged his form and the fabric looked soft and high-quality. "These are _Armani _jeans, Sammy, you gotta get a pair. And the shirt cost more than we paid for that hotel room at Disneyland."

Sam shook his head, not sure whether to be amused or disgusted. "I liked you better in that paper bag and your Goodwill jeans. I thought you said you were going to do research."

"Hey, nobody said I couldn't mix business with pleasure. First I walked around the neighborhood a bit—"

"Please tell me you didn't go stalking Bruce Willis or Britney Spears."

"Give me a little credit, Sammy!" He shrugged. "Besides, you can't see much from the sidewalk. Uh, never mind. I had a nice chat with the concierge of the hotel here."

"Really?"

Dean's expression was bleak. "Well, you'd be amazed at what some of these Hollywood superstars like to do in their down time. Private parties on their yachts, gourmet dinners for their poodles, champagne baths…" He shivered. "Yeesh."

"I'm guessing none of that appeals to you."

"We're not getting a poodle, so don't even go there." He considered. "Speaking of which, we could stop off at this hair salon I saw, get you a decent haircut for once."

"Shut up."

"Only sixty-five bucks, and that includes the blow dry."

"Did you find out anything else or not, Dean? Because I'm more than ready to leave." He was losing patience. The entire afternoon felt like a waste of time. He'd been reading more about the two drowning deaths in Massachusetts-one in a locked car, one in a shower—and he was beginning to think he should have objected more strongly to Dean's plan.

"They have a terrific mani-pedi combo that's only—"

"I've actually found you a couple of possibilities," Sam cut him off. "If you're really interested in blowing your millions."

"Yeah?" Dean perked up. "Tell me."

Sam pushed his laptop over so Dean could see the screen. "This is from a site called . It's a little over the top, but… knock yourself out."

"_Buy your own sports team_…" Dean sounded vaguely intrigued.

"That'll set you back about a hundred, hundred fifty million."

"Could be fun," Dean said. "But… nah, I've only got them for one season. What if they lose?"

"Good point."

"_Buy a personal island._ That would be kinda cool."

"You could do it for twenty-five million or so. Lots of privacy, because some of these islands are pretty remote."

"Who needs neighbors? And check this out: _Buy a yacht or submarine_." He grinned. "I could be a skipper. Like on _Gilligan's Island._"

"You remember they were marooned there forever, right?"

"Ginger and Mary Ann were babes, though, you gotta admit…"

Not for the first time, Sam considered that they'd watched way too much TV as kids. "Be serious. Is there anything on the list you really want to do?"

"_Art collecting. _ Boring. _Travel with an entourage._ Give me a fucking break... _Join an exclusive social club._ Yeah, got a taste of that shit at the Roadhouse."

Sam sighed. "Look, Dean, instead of trying to figure out what other people who are nothing like you do with their money, why don't you ask yourself what _you_ really want to do …" He stumbled, stopping himself just in time from continuing _with the time you've got left_. "Uh… now that you can do anything you want?"

Dean nodded. "Hell, yeah, maybe you're right. Make up our own rules, like always."

"You know," Sam said carefully, "I've been thinking, in the meantime, maybe we should get back to the job. Remember the job, Dean? I've been doing a little research, and there've been a couple of weird drownings in Massachusetts. Could be our kind of thing."

Dean was quiet for a moment, then looked away. "Why don't you give Bobby a head's up," he said. "Have somebody else look into it for now."

Sam was shocked; he couldn't remember another time when Dean had put his own needs before the job, not when there were innocent lives on the line.

They left L.A. the next day, not before Dean arranged to spend the night with the most expensive escort the Regent Beverly Wilshire's concierge could find. Sam spent the night alone in their hotel room, rereading _Dante's Inferno._

**SpN*SpN*SpN*SpN**

They headed back east, stopping off that first night in a small town near Phoenix. Dean went off on his own for a few hours after dinner. When he came back, he pulled Sam away from his laptop and drove them to a deserted field on the outskirts of the city.

He popped open the trunk and hefted out a bulging box of colorful objects.

"Firecrackers?" Sam looked at him incredulously. "Are you nuts?"

"You said figure out what I wanted to buy. This is what I want."

"But it's mid-October!"

Dean's next words stopped him cold. "Not gonna be around next Fourth of July, Sammy." Dean didn't look at him, just stacked the cones and rockets neatly next to a clearing in the dirt. "Thought we'd celebrate early this year. Like we did that one time."

It had been years since Sam had thought of that night. He must have been twelve or thirteen. Dean had bought firecrackers, and he didn't think anyone in the world had a cooler brother.

He still thought so. Dean was the bravest, most devoted, most determined man he knew. But Sam wasn't that kid anymore, who could be placated by an hour of illegal pyrotechnics and a hug from his hero.

He tried to keep any hint of his dark thoughts out of his expression, aware that Dean was watching him carefully. He smiled and clapped his brother on the back at the end, determined to give him a memory that he could hold onto for comfort… later.

**SpN*SpN*SpN*SpN**

Dean spent most of the next weeks chasing nostalgia. He had a bag of burgers flown in from the Seaside Snack Bar in Delaware, delivered to their hotel by special courier. He'd always dreamed of seeing the Grand Canyon, so they went rafting down the Colorado River even though it was really getting too cold and Sam spent the whole time shivering. They laid an enormous wreath of flowers on their mother's grave in Lawrence and tidied up the site near Dad's funeral pyre.

He helped out friends, mostly without their knowledge. He paid off Lisa's mortgage and hired a construction team to surprise Missouri with a new roof. With Bobby's help, they persuaded Ellen to accept enough support to get her set up in a comfortable home, now that the Roadhouse was gone. And, for some reason, Dean insisted on giving an endowment to some home for delinquent boys in New York which Sam had never heard of.

Even the Impala got spiffied up, with a new sound system and a staggeringly expensive wax and polish. "Shut up. She's worth every penny," Dean told him, caressing the hood, which was so shiny and sleek even Sam had to admit it looked good.

They swung by South Dakota so Dean could drop off a fourteenth-century, pristine copy of the _Directorium Inquisitorum _that he'd bid on at Southeby's.

"Well, don't expect anything from me before Christmas," Bobby told them gruffly, his fingers caressing the ancient leather binding. "So, you two jackasses 'bout ready to finish up this shopping spree and get back to work? Those drownings in Massachusetts ain't gonna go away by themselves, you know."

Sam frowned. "I thought you sent somebody up there already."

"Nobody was available except Garth. And he can't swim."

**SpN*SpN*SpN*SpN**

As they headed back to New England, Dean asked him for a status report. "Been about a month since we got the money. I want to know how I'm doing."

"What am I, your accountant?" Sam grumbled. "You're doing just fine, trust me."

"I wanna know. Just a ballpark figure."

Sam sighed, opened up the laptop, and logged into their joint account. "Taking into consideration your earnings from interest—which are taxable, by the way, not that I guess you care—minus what you've spent… You're down about a million and a half."

There was a silence.

'Well, this is turning into a real headache," Dean said finally. "I'm spending as fast as I can, and what the fuck do I have to show for it?"

Damn it, not this again. "What are you talking about? You did some nice things for people you care about."

"But we hardly have any fucking friends, so how much did that cost? We're socially isolated." He glared at Sam, as if daring him to argue. "And hunters are hard to buy for. Living in squalor is part of the culture."

"You bought yourself a few things that you wanted," he pointed out. "And we've been staying in some pretty fancy hotels. Don't tell me that you miss the smell of mildew and cigarette smoke."

"But none of it really…" His voiced trailed off. But the disappointed set of his mouth was eloquent enough.

Sam understood. Fancy gifts and five-star hotels couldn't change the inexorable march toward his deadline, and gourmet meals couldn't distract him for more than an hour at a time.

"Maybe it's a curse after all," Dean said bitterly, mouth twisted into a grimace. "Winning the jackpot hasn't done shit for me."

"Oh, for God's sake, Dean, stop feeling sorry for yourself!" Sam exploded. "Do you know how ungrateful you sound? Most people wouldn't consider sudden wealth a problem. How about we concentrate on some of our _real_ problems for a change? Like demons? And innocent people dying?"

"Fine," Dean said shortly. "Forget I said anything. Let the damn money rot in our account, for all care."

"Actually," Sam said, "I have an idea about what we could use the money for. Something that might actually help. But let's deal with these drownings first."


End file.
